1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of refrigerators and, more particularly, to the mounting of a dairy compartment to an inner liner of a refrigerator door.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In the art of refrigerators, it is commonly known to incorporate various shelves and/or compartments on an inner fresh food compartment door for use in storing various food items. Generally, refrigerator fresh food compartment doors are formed from an outer metal shell to which is attached an inner plastic liner. It is known to integrally form such liners with shelf-defining members. For example, it is known in the art to provide a generally horizontally extending shelf or compartment with side walls defined by door dikes to support items on the door. Often times, a closure member extends between the dikes and is pivotable between a compartment access position and a closed position. The use of such a closure member is preferable to prevent items stored in the compartment from becoming dislodged upon a sudden movement of the fresh food compartment door. Typically, such closure members are only associated with dairy compartments provided on refrigerator doors.
In many cases, a dairy compartment is integrally formed as part of the inner door liner. More specifically, it has become common practice to integrally form a tray portion of the compartment at the uppermost portion of the door liner and then pivotally attach a cover to the tray. With this construction, the dairy compartment can be easily dimensioned so as to extend across a desired percentage of the inner door. In other known arrangements, the dairy compartment is formed separate from the inner liner and attached thereto. In general, these types of dairy compartments are designed to extend the full width of the door liner in order to enable the compartments to be supported upon dike portions of the liner. In any case, the known mounting arrangements are quite particular and limit the overall design of the refrigerator door storage system.